


silk and sea glass

by skatzaa



Category: The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Female Sean Kendrick, Post-Canon, Spring, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-08-02 10:18:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16303292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatzaa/pseuds/skatzaa
Summary: I meet Sean on the cliffs after Mass on Sunday. Sometime in the past week the island has decided that it’s true spring, and the cliffs overlooking the race beach are now overrun with the small purple wildflowers that bloom every year.Sean is waiting with her back to the island and her hands in her jacket pockets, looking out toward the sea.





	silk and sea glass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [YourPalYourBuddy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/gifts).



> Syd requested "Some f/f Kendricks + Thisby in summer or spring" and I was helpless to resist. Originally posted on tumblr. Hope y'all like it <3

PUCK

I meet Sean on the cliffs after Mass on Sunday. Sometime in the past week the island has decided that it’s true spring, and the cliffs overlooking the race beach are now overrun with the small purple wildflowers that bloom every year.

Sean is waiting with her back to the island and her hands in her jacket pockets, looking out toward the sea. The wind teases her short hair back from her forehead as I watch. She turns and I catch the barest hint of a smile as I draw closer.

“Ms. Connolly,” she says, reaching out with her left hand. I roll my eyes at her sass but take her hand anyway. Her fingers are rough and warm against my own. “You’re early.”

“Shockingly, Father Mooneyham had very little to say this morning,” I say. The breeze tosses the salt-brine-seaweed scent of the ocean at us. It smells like Corr does every fall, when she paces through her paddock and calls for the sea.

Sean  _hmm_ s? as if she, too, cannot believe it. After all, Father Mooneyham has made this very afternoon his personal crusade for several months now, beating against my resolve like the sea beats against the cliffs in a storm.

“Come here,” I say to her, sinking to the soft spring grass. I pull Sean along with me so that we end up seated together. She allows me to pluck one of the purple blossoms and tuck it behind her ear, and then she returns the favor. Her fingers touch upon the ribbon tied around my wrist and she ducks her head to kiss me. I am full of sensations—her chapped lips against mine, the sweet scent of the flowers, the cries of the gulls above—and my heart swells with it. I can’t imagine being anywhere else than right here.

Others appear over the course of the next hour. Finn is first, bearing pastries from the bakery. How he managed to sneak them away from Palsson I’m not sure; though Bev has always had a soft spot for my little brother, Palsson himself has grown curt since this past November. George Holly is next, and while we wait he braids my hair back in the latest style in California, telling us all the while that his sister insisted he learn for his next visit. He weaves in flowers as he goes—yellow ones that he must have picked in town.

Dory Maud and her sisters come up the path from the beach. Annie kisses my cheek before allowing Holly to wrap his arm around her shoulders. Dory Maud comes over and straightens the straps of my dress, her fingers cold enough that she must have dipped them in the ocean and held them there for some time. She doesn’t smell of salt. Elizabeth, meanwhile, is busy scolding Sean for sitting in the grass in her one nice pair of pants. Sean weathers it with the same bewildered air she always has when someone demonstrates concern for things Sean hadn’t thought to consider.

The last person to join us is Peg, her red curls a wild halo about her head. She comes from the direction of Skarmouth, having returned home after Mass, and she wears a faded silk shawl. When she draws closer, I can see that it depicts the ocean and the horses, one blending into the other.

Gabe isn’t here. Either he didn’t receive my letter, or he decided not to come. There’s a pang in my heart at the thought and I do my best to push it away.

Sean touches her fingertips to the corner of my jaw. I turn into her kiss and savor it for a long moment.

“Puck,” Peg says. I pull away from Sean, but I make sure to meet her eyes, dark and lovely and as certain as the island beneath us, before I stand.

“Yes?”

Peg reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. I’ve never seen her look so unkempt, but it can’t be anything other than intentional today. She asks, “Are you certain you want to do this? It won’t be recognized in the eyes of the Church, but the islanders won’t take too kindly to it.”

I think of all glares I’ve received since the fall, the nasty words said just a bit too loudly behind my back. The way Eaton spit at my feet when I walked past him last week in Tholla. I think of the black eye Finn received in February when he stood up to a few of his old classmates who said cruel things in his hearing.

I meet Peg’s eyes.

“They’ve never taken kindly to people like Sean and I,” I tell her. It’s why Gabe left, why he won’t come back even though the rumors have died down since Tommy’s death. “I won’t let that stand in the way of our happiness.”

Peg nods, as though she didn’t expect anything else.

“Well,” she says, and pulls something out of her skirt pocket. It’s a necklace strung with small beads made out of coral or some other type of seashell. There’s a large piece of blue glass situated in the middle, it’s edges worn soft by the sea. “Your mum gave this to me when I married Tom. I thought she might like you to have it today.”

I swallow my tears and allow her to clasp the necklace around my neck. When she lets it go, the glass hangs between my breasts, bright against the soft yellow fabric of my dress

“Now,” Peg says, her expression proud, “your young lady is waiting for you, I think.”

We are hardly as young as we once were, but I don’t argue with her. Instead, I turn to face the sea and there is Sean, outlined against the cloudless sky. She’s taken off her jacket, revealing a simple sleeveless shirt that is a soft shade of green. I think it’s one that once belonged to my dad; the memory of Finn bent over it in the firelight, patiently picking away at the stitches, comes to me, and I can’t help but smile.

Sean smiles back, and it’s not just the flattening of her eyes or a twitch of her lips but a true smile, one I see rather infrequently. It makes my heart stutter in my chest as Peg leads me to stand at Sean’s side.

Our loved ones arrange themselves to stand around us as Sean and I face each other. Peg stands between us and the sea, her voice ringing out over the sound of the incoming tide.

Traditional Thisby vows are simple enough, nothing like what we would have said if we stood in St. Columba's and pledged ourselves before God and the Church. What’s important is the witnessing of the promises, by the island and the sea and the people who call them both home. I tilt my chin up to meet Sean’s dark, steady eyes and don’t look away.

At the end, she slides a ring onto my finger and I loop a necklace with the matching ring over her head and then tuck it beneath the neckline of her shirt. The rings didn’t belong to any of our parents—Mum’s, Dad’s, and Sean’s Dad’s were all lost to the sea, and her mum’s isn’t anywhere in the old house on the western cliffs that we can find—but instead are ones that Dory Maud gave us from the shop, months ago, when she heard the news. It was one act of charity that Elizabeth didn’t fight her on.

With Peg’s permission, Sean steps forward and touches her fingertips to the underside of my jaw. When we kiss, I press one hand against the warmth of her stomach and wrap my other arm around her back. George Holly wolf whistles and then Dory Maud out-does him as she always does.

I pull back and open my eyes, already laughing. Sean looks at me as she always does, her gaze full of— _everything._

Finn makes us eat a cookie each, ones he decorated himself, and then Peg leads us down the cliff path to the sands so we can complete the final ritual.

Peg says something in the Old Thisby dialect—a rare and precious enough gift that it startles me. Sean wraps her fingers around mine to steady me and then we step into the ocean as one, the sea foam pooling like lace around our legs. We walk until the water is up to our chests, and then together we duck beneath the waves. The sea glass floats up from my chest as we sink, and it catches the light from the afternoon sun as it hangs, momentarily weightless in the surf.

We linger there, beneath the surface, for the span of several heartbeats. The flowers are likely coming loose from my hair, but I couldn’t care less. Sean tugs on my hand and we stand, water tumbling down from our bodies, as equals and wives.

When she kisses me this time, the tide tugging at our limbs, I taste salt and the promise of our future together. It’s a wonderful thing. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated (as are tumblr replies and tags!)
> 
> Read on,  
> Skats


End file.
